If Jesus were walking on the planet today, he would not
recognize much of what passes as Christianity.
If Jesus were walking on the planet today, he would not recognize much of what passes as Christianity. That term once signified someone who was a Christ-follower, someone who was actually living out the teachings of Christ in his or her daily life. But with the passage of time, Jesus’ message has been watered down in the minds of many Christians.
Today, I ask you to consider a definition of the term that does justice to the faith Jesus established, a radical lifestyle choice that is guaranteed to cost you something spiritually, emotionally, relationally, intellectually and even physically. Leonard Sweet in his “Magna Charta of Trust by an Out-of-Control Disciple,” defines what modern-day Christianity should look like:
“I am part of the Church of the Out-of-Control. I once was a control junkie, but now am an out-of-control disciple. I’ve given up my control to God. I trust and obey the Spirit. I’ve jumped off the fence, I’ve stepped over the line, I’ve pulled out all the stops. There’s no turning back, looking around, slowing down, backing away, letting up or shutting up.
“It’s life against the odds, outside the box, over the wall, the game of life played without goal lines other than ‘Thy Will Be Done.’ I am not here to please the dominant culture. I live to please my Lord and Savior. My spiritual taste buds have graduated from fizz to froth to fire and ice. Sometimes I’m called to sharpen the cutting edge and sometimes to blunt the cutting edge.
“Don’t give me that old-time religion. Don’t give me that new-time religion. Give me that all-time religion that’s as hard as rock and as soft as snow.
“I’ve stopped trying to make life work, and started trying to make life sing. I am finished with secondhand sensations, third-rate dreams, low-risk high-rise trades and goose-stepping, flag-waving crusades. I no longer live by and for anything but everything God-breathed, Christ-centered and Spirit-driven.
“I can’t be bought by any personalities or perks or positions or prizes. I won’t give up, though I may give in … to openness of mind, humbleness of heart, and generosity of spirit.
“In the face of adversity no longer will I hang in there. I will stand in there, I will run in there, I will pray in there, I will sacrifice in there, I will endure in there – In fact, I will do everything in there but hang.
“My face is upward, my feet are forward, my eyes are focused, my way is cloudy, my knees are worn, my seat uncreased, my heart burdened, my spirit light, my road narrow, my mission wide. I won’t be seduced by popularity, traduced by criticism, travestied by hypocrisy or trivialized by mediocrity.
“I am organized religion’s best friend and worst nightmare. I won’t back down, slow down, shut down or let down until I’m preached out, teached out, healed out or hauled out of God’s mission in the world entrusted to members of the Church of the Out-of-Control … to unbind the confined, whether they’re the downtrodden or the upscale, the overlooked or the under represented.
“My fundamental identity is as a disciple of Jesus – but even more, as a disciple of Jesus who lives in Christ, who doesn’t walk through history simply ‘in his steps,’ but seeks to travel more deeply in His Spirit.
“Until he comes again or calls me home, you can find me filling – not killing – time so that one day he will pick me out in the line-up of the ages as one of his own. And then it will be worth it all to hear these words, the most precious words I can ever hear: ‘Well done, thou good and faithful … Out-of-Control Disciple.'”
